Judith Kaye, First Woman To Serve As New York's Top Judge, R.I.P.
The legal profession just lost one of its great leaders.
This morning we started to hear unconfirmed reports that Judge Judith S. Kaye — the Chief Judge of the State of New York from 1993 to 2008, and the first woman to hold the post — had passed away. Sadly, it turns out that these reports are accurate, as just reported by the New York Law Journal:
Judith Kaye, the first woman to be New York state chief judge, died overnight, the state Court of Appeals said Thursday. She was 77.
Kaye died at her Manhattan home, Court of Appeals spokesman Gary Spencer confirmed. He had no other details.
Kaye has been of counsel at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in Manhattan since she was forced to step down at the end of 2008 due to the court’s mandatory retirement rules.
She was chief judge from 1993 to her retirement, and had served for 10 years before that as an associate judge on the Court of Appeals.
Judge Kaye earned widespread acclaim for her long and successful tenure as New York’s top judge. As noted in her Skadden bio:
Judge Kaye gained a national reputation for both her groundbreaking decisions and her innovative reforms of the New York court system. She wrote notable decisions on a wide variety of statutory, constitutional and common law issues, including rights for gay couples and the death penalty. Judge Kaye also left her mark on New York’s courts as a creative reformer, streamlining New York’s jury system and establishing specialized courts to focus on issues such as drug addiction, domestic violence and mental health issues. In addition, she created the Adoption Now program that has produced more effective procedures for children in foster care and their families. Her reforms have been implemented by many other state courts.
Before her appointment to the bench, she practiced law at Sullivan & Cromwell, IBM and Olwine, Connelly, Chase, O’Donnell & Weyher, where she became that firm’s first female partner.
Over the years we’ve heard about Judge Kaye from many people whose lives have been touched by her, including lawyers and law clerks who worked with her when she was on the bench and after she left it, and they all had nothing but praise for her as a judge, a lawyer, and a person. She will be missed by her family, her friends, and the legal profession she tirelessly served for so many years.
UPDATE (12:15 p.m.): Here is a statement from Eric J. Friedman, Skadden’s executive partner, on Judge Kaye’s passing:
Judge Kaye’s life was one of service to the state of New York, the legal system, the legal profession and the children of New York; her contributions cannot be overstated. The first woman to ever serve on the New York Court of Appeals, and the court’s longest-serving chief judge, she was a true pioneer. We have been honored to have her as our colleague and friend over the past six years. She will be deeply missed.
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And here is a statement from New York City Council Member Rory I. Lancman, who served on the Assembly Judiciary Committee while Judge Kaye led the courts:
Judge Judith Kaye was a trailblazer as Chief Judge, who never stopped blazing trails even after she left the court. She pushed New York forward on specialized courts for drug addiction, mental health and domestic violence, and instituted historic reforms making jury service fairer and more efficient. The Center for Court Innovation, established on her watch, is the envy of judicial systems across the country and at the vanguard of today’s effort to reform our country’s justice system. In her retirement, Judge Kaye was a fierce advocate for ending the school-to-prison pipeline and continued to impact our judiciary as Chair of the Commission on Judicial Nomination. Her passing is a tremendous loss for our state.
UPDATE (1:17 p.m.): A friend of Judge Kaye informed us that she died of lung cancer (as also noted by NY1). Our source adds, “Interesting fact: She was not endorsed by the women’s bar when she was appointed. She had never been a judge, and they found her unqualified. Boy, were they wrong.”
Here are tributes to Judge Kaye by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who has ordered that flags on all state government buildings be flown at half-staff tomorrow in Judge Kaye’s honor, and by New York City Public Advocate Letitia James.
UPDATE (4:45 p.m.): The LGBT Bar Association of Greater New York (LeGaL) just circulated via email its statement on Judge Kaye, which you can access here.
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(Flip to the next page for Judge Kaye’s full bio from the Skadden website, which describes her remarkable and pathbreaking career in more detail.)
